Butterfly Enigma II

Summary: With one awkward semester under her belt, Kallima returns to the Fairy Realm with high hopes. Unfortunately, a plot unfolds, pitting her friends against each other...leaving her to rely on her shield.

Havard stroked
Kallima's slowly lengthening hair again, kissed her forehead, and
held out his hands. Kallima pulled a case off one pillow and wrapped
the jar in it. Then she passed the jar to the greying man.

“Be quick, Princess,”
he reminded her. “We need to be there at sunrise.”

“I know.”

The man left the room,
and Kallima's grin vanished into a groan of exhaustion as she fell
back into her bedding.

Though the fire in the
jar; a fetch light, her friends called it; had helped, Kallima felt
no better at the end of winter break than she had after Hallowtide
break, and she was eager to be back in her own world. Not that anyone
would know by looking at her. For one, she appeared both physically
and emotionally drained. For another, she looked human enough and had
even been raised as one, right up until she found herself enrolled in
boarding school.

But she was most
certainly not human.

In fact, Kallima was,
quite possibly, the farthest thing from a human ever to exist in the
Mortal Realm without attracting any attention. Havard called her an
alp. The rest of the block had taken to calling her the
neighborhood's “Nightmare,” not that they knew it was her. In the
Fairy Realm, however, she was known by a small group as a dream fae,
a dangerous creature able to redirect doors with a touch, invade the
dreams of others, and blur the lines between illusion and reality.
The news that Kallima was not only a fae but also one of the rarest
and most powerful breeds still rattled her brain. What hurt, though,
was the discovery that she possessed no human genes whatsoever, that
Havard was not her real father.

So, when Kallima sat at
the island counter to eat, Evelyn shook her brown curls at her in
disbelief.

“I don't understand
'ow,” she said, “ya can come 'ome from school on break an' leave
wiv less energy dan ya came wiv.”

Kallima faked a smile
and replied, “Maybe you don't need to understand, Evelyn.”

The caramel woman
sighed and waved Kallima to eat. The redhead's chest tightened as the
thin cakes became ash in her mouth and rock in her stomach. The world
was rejecting her in much the same way a body fights off a parasite.
Still, she choked down most of the familiar food in an attempt not to
insult Havard's fiancé.

Kallima scoffed and
pushed her way out of the room, pulling a coat on roughly as she did.
The car outside already rumbled with a false life that made the teen
shiver. She breathed on her hands to warm them and clambered into the
passenger seat, lifting the pillowcase with her fetch light from the
cushion as she did. After a moment, Havard opened and closed his own
door, switched on the headlights, and eased the car down the street.

“You're mad,” he
said when they reached the edge of the suburb.

Kallima rolled her
eyes, saying, “Yes, Da. I'm mad.”

“Because of the
baby?”

“Because you sprang
this on me! You had me right blinkered, Da.”

“I wanted Eve to tell
you, but she kept dodging. I wanted her to tell you New Years.”

“Bloody Hell, Da, why
do you keep doing this to me? When I left it was just us! Then I came
home, and you had a fiancé? I leave again and come back to a- a
family that isn't mine anymore-”

“Kali!”

“I'll get back in
March and you'll be married. I'll get back in May and you'll be getting ready for a
baby! Christ, Da, maybe I should stay in Evendial!”

“That is enough!”

Kallima flinched at the
harshness of Havard's tone. She pulled the tiny blue light to her
stomach and let it warm her through her coat. Havard sighed.

“Listen, Kali,” he
said. “I know that's the Fever talking. We all know that she's not
going to replace Satu. She won't even try. But I still raised you. I
still care about you. I'm still your father, aren't I?”

Kallima nodded with a
whisper, “Yes.”

“I am happy with Eve,
and I am going to have a child that is mine in more than just my
heart soon. But it is not going to replace you.”

“What about Jack and
Evan? Do they know, or are you waiting for them to start class, too?”
Kallima asked.

“Jack knows,”
Havard admitted. “Evan... Evan's still a baby himself. We want to
wait until after the wedding to tell him.”

“When is she due?”

“Early August.”

Kallima stared out the
window as the woods rolled into view. Her stomach knotted in
anticipation at the smell of spruce. A soft “oi” drew her
attention back to Havard.

“Will you try to see
if you can come home for the wedding?” he asked.

“Yes, Da,” Kallima
grinned, more at soft pink of the horizon than the man next to her.
“I'll talk to Headmaster Locke.”

“Good. Oh, no,” the
aging sighed, stopping the car.

Kallima slid out
quickly and laughed at the sharp-faced woman in thick furs standing
at the edge of the forest. Havard waved to the pale figure as it
stalked towards them, pulling a wooden sled behind her.

“Hallo, Minnie.”

“Greetings, Porter.
But my name,” the elf corrected, “is Mina.”

“When you use the one
I like, I'll use the one you like,” the grey human said. “What
are you doing here?”

Mina scoffed in insult,
“I am here to take the child to her home world. What are you doing
here?”

At that, Havard
clenched his jaw, either unsure of what to say or offended. Mina
smiled sweetly to Kallima, though, and began cooing over the girl's
red hair.

“It's grown a good
inch, hasn't it?” Kallima said.

“It's finally
starting to look like girl's hair,” Mina agreed. “Ah, I'm
supposed to let you know that Jasmine Colson's parents asked that she
be... assigned to a different room. You and Miss de'Parsia have it to
yourselves now.”

“What? Why?”
Kallima asked, hugging her fetch light tightly.

“Mr. Colson believes
'she would be safer spending her time with a different crowd.' Which
I understand to mean he thinks you're both dangerous and a bad
influence.”

“Yes, of course,”
the fiery-haired girl said. “I was asking for it, after all, with
the way I dressed.”

“Miss Satudotter...”

Kallima waved a hand,
“No, no. It's all right. Jazz wasn't really close to me, not like
Sable is. No worries.”

Mina sighed,
straightened herself, and cleared her throat.

“Gabriel Tucker no
longer attends Iolanthe School of Fae. He has been relocated to
another district,” she said.

“Good,” Kallima
responded. “The less I need to think about Gabe Fucker, the
better.”

The elf stifled a laugh
and nodded shortly. Havard, however wagged a finger.

“Watch that mouth of
yours, Princess.”

“Yes, Da,” Kallima
lied.

He mussed the girl's
hair and said softly, “Have fun at school, Kali.”

“I will. See you,
er-”

“March twenty-fifth,”
Mina told her.

“March twenty-fifth,
then!” Kallima repeated.

Havard's face fell as
he agreed to the date. Kallima, purposely ignoring the tone, traipsed
after the elf. After a short walk, Mina stopped the girl and pointed
to a spot where footprints appeared from nowhere. The snow in that
patch seemed lower than that around it. Kallima, equally giddy and
tired, jumped into the invisible ring. Mina laughed as she joined the
teenager, making sure the sled with all of Kallima's boxes was fully
inside. A red glow reached the horizon as the first light of the sun
fell on the clearing.

“Just in time,”
Mina said as an auroral glow shot up around them.

Kallima gripped one of
her boxes tightly as the world around them spun wildly. She glanced
up at Mina, who had shut her eyes against the onslaught. Kallima
mimicked her as well as she could until a lurch in her gut brought
her to her knees and she groaned.

“Maybe 'cause I'm
only half-fae?” Kallima said, knowing that it was untrue.

Mina pursed her lips
and started towards the castle on the peninsula. Kallima struggled to
her feet and chased after her.

“You know,” the
teen asked. “You know I'm not, don't you?”

Mina stammered, “I...
I promised not to speak.”

“To me?”

“To anyone. She
wouldn't say why, but she was terrified of anyone knowing about you.
She made me swear to never say a word.”

“That she was
pregnant?”

Mina nodded.

“Did you swear on
your life?”

Another nod. Kallima's
voice caught in her throat.

“Did- did she say...
who m-my father was?” she asked.

Mina shook her head,
“That is information she would not share. Only a handful of fae
knew about you. Me, Micah, Jun, Matthias, and... She wouldn't tell
us.”

The elf whistled
loudly, and a small flock of imps arrived quickly. They grabbed the
boxes on the sled and took off again before either could speak. Mina
put a hand on Kallima's shoulder and leaned into her ear.

“I have my
suspicions,” she admitted to the teenager, “and they bode ill for
you. If you are who I think you are, then last semester could have
been far, far worse than it was. Especially after your little
incident with the Nobles.”

Kallima shivered as
Mina abandoned her in the courtyard. She wiped away the moisture on
her cheeks, silently praying that it was snow, as she took in the
school all over again.

Save for the thin layer
of snow on the lawn, nothing about the re-purposed castle had
changed. The thin, birch gazebo still held its ground against a
seemingly impossible amount of snow in addition to the dense brass
bell that she and her peers answered to each day. A path had been
shoveled through the yard, splitting in half near the gazebo. Kallima
sighed and followed the left fork to the dining hall, clutching the
newly-energized light to her chest. She sighed relief as a happy, green twinge returned to it. Inside, a familiar, blue-haired man
laughed at a much less familiar, fox-like being.

“It's not funny,
Micah,” the fox said. “I had to show her the picture to get her
to back off.”

“What, the wedding
picture?”

“Student,” the fox
observed, turning away.

“There are no stud-
Oh! Hey, Kallima!” Micah called as he turned. “Were you hungry
this time?”

“Famished,” the
teen said.

Micah chuckled and
rubbed his chin.

“Eggs on toast?”

Kallima nodded, and
Micah vanished into the adjacent kitchen. The redhead eased into her
favorite corner seat, set her fetch light on the table, and stared
across the room at the humanoid still present.

His orange hair fluffed
around his head like a short mane, and two orange fox ears poked
straight up from it. A matching tail appeared from under his long
shirt, the tip a snowy white brushing the floor as though painting
it. Kallima was so intrigued by the being that she did not realize
that he stared at her until his yellow-green eyes met her grey ones.
Then she turned away quickly.

“Satudotter, right?”
the creature asked.

Kallima said, “Y-yes.
I'm.. I'm from the-”

“Mortal Realm. I
know. Those from the Fairy Realm rarely stare at a common thing like
me.”

“What are you?”

“A kitzun. Well, not
so common in these parts, but still. Not the strangest thing in this
area,” the orange being informed her. “Micah used to have a
crush-”

“On Mum. Everyone
did,” Kallima said.

“Yep. Nearly
converted him,” the fox said with a smirk. “So. What are you
taking this term?”

suruchiagarwal916:
This is a really wow kinda book. I am pretty much very interested and curious to read this book over and over again. This is one of the best series I have ever read. So far..so good.

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